Seige
by Eternal Headache
Summary: Mount Justice is under Seige.  By Robin.


Ok, so this ambushed me when I woke up this morning. Have no idea where it came from but at least it's out of my head now and I can carry on with other things. Hope you enjoy

Warning: Not beta'd. My eyes are terrible so excuse any weird errors :)

SEIGE

Mount Justice was under lockdown, and under siege. Kaldur and M'Gann were down, leaving only Superboy and Artemis to fend off their attacker. Wally was, unfortunately, absent when the attack began, something which both teens cursed as they could have really used the speedsters' help.

Against Robin.

Yes, it was Robin who had attacked them, much to their confusion. The four teens had been in the common room watching TV or, in M'Gann's case, baking up a storm when the lights went out, the emergency lights came on, and a pleasant female voice announced that Mount Justice was now under lock down. When Kaldur had asked why, the pleasant voice replied, "Under the authority of Robin."

The group exchanged frowns, then Kaldur attempted to override using his own codes which, being the leader, overrode the codes of the others.

"Negative," the computer responded. "All other authorization codes have been disabled by Robin."

"What the hell is he doing?" Artemis asked and Superboy replied with, "Why don't we ask him?" They looked at him, then followed his gaze. Robin stood in the doorway in full uniform, head down, one had pressed against the wall as if in support.

"Robin?" M'Gann asked, starting toward him in concern but stopping when Superboy snatched her arm. "Wait," he murmured, narrowing his eyes and sniffing the air. "I smell…" He trailed off as Robin raised his head and they all drew in quick breaths. Thin trails of blood leaked down from beneath Robin's mask, his right nostril and the left corner of his mouth. His too pale skin glistened with sweat even in the dim light of the room, and all could feel threat radiating from him. Clearly, he had some kind of illness and it was affecting his mind.

"Robin?" Kaldur called, subtlety signaling the others to be ready to move. "Can you hear me? You need help. Let us help you."

A low snarl and bearing of teeth was the only answer, and only warning they got before Robin attacked. He was fast and vicious and seemed to be everywhere at once with his constant disappearing and reappearing. Kaldur was taken down first, though he put up a decent fight trying to buy the others time to either summon help or find a way to disable Robin. M'Gann was next after a failed attempt at attacking him with her mind. With a little shriek of fear, she put up a barrier that he savagely attacked and immediately sought out her uncle.

'Uncle J'onn!' she cried out. 'We need help in the cave! Robin is attacking us!'

'Calm down, M'Gann,' J'onn replied. 'What is happening? Why is Robin attacking?'

'I…I don't know! He…he looks sick,' M'Gann replied, watching as Artemis and Superboy drew Robin away from her. 'There is blood coming from his eyes, nose and mouth and when I tried to subdue him mentally, it was like there was no mind to subdue! It just made him angrier!' She let out another shriek as Superboy crashed into her barrier, distracting her enough that it collapsed. Robin was on her immediately and she was down seconds later.

That had been thirty six minutes ago, and Artemis and Superboy were now in a game of cat and mouse with Robin that took them all over the cave as they waited for help to arrive. Currently, they were hidden in the training room, having lost track of Robin several minutes earlier.

"This is unreal," Superboy muttered softly. "I should have been able to take him down, but I can't even touch him! It's like he's developed super powers or something!"

"You may not be far off the mark," Artemis whispered back. "It's like he's been turned into a zombie!"

Now *there* was a frightening thought. From what she knew of zombies, they were relentless and difficult to defeat if you weren't willing to outright kill them. God help them if that was truly what Robin had become. "Come on!" she muttered. "Where the hell is back up?"

Superboy shifted next to her, then shouted, "Move!" shoving her hard, which threw her several feet away. Looking up, she found Robin where she had just been, a sword jammed into the floor. 'Where the hell did he get a *sword* from?' she thought, wide-eyed as she scrambled to her feet and reached for an arrow.

"Artemis, go!" Superboy shouted as he launched himself at Robin. "Find a way out and see where back up is!"

"No way!" Artemis protested. "I'm not leaving you!"

"I'll be fine!" Superboy snapped back. "He can't hurt me, now *go!*"

Artemis hesitated and Superboy roared out, "GO!" as he narrowly avoided a strike from Robin. She nodded shortly, then turned and fled, hearing another roar from Superboy as he continued to engage their youngest member. She ran down the halls and back into the common room, stopping to check on Kaldur and M'Gann. Kaldur was stirring and she called out to him with an anxious glance back the way she had come.

"Artemis!"

She jumped up and spun around, an arrow held defensively in her hand, relaxing with relief when she saw who it was. "Wally! Batman! Oh, am I glad to see you!"

It was a testament as to how worried Wally was that he didn't make any of his usual wisecracks. Instead, he hurried up to her, looking at her, then M'Gann and Kaldur before asking, "You okay?"

Shaking her head, Artemis answered, "No. I am so far from okay right now! Robin…"

"We know," Batman cut her off. "M'Gann contacted J'onn and told him what was happening. We managed to get into the security feed to get a visual on the situation."

"You have a plan, I hope."

"Of course," Wally replied with a grin smile. "We wouldn't bust in here with Robin acting all Predator without a plan!"

A soft whimper from M'Gann drew their attention. "Artemis, stay here with them," Batman ordered as he started in the direction sounds of fighting were coming from. "This shouldn't take long."

Wally reached out and gave Artemis's shoulder a gentle squeeze, followed by a reassuring smile before hurrying after the Bat.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

He was right. Less than ten minutes later, while she was talking quietly to M'Gann and helping Kaldur hold an ice pack to his head, Wally and Superboy hurried into the room, followed closely by Batman, who was holding an unconscious Robin in his arms. "Bring those two the medical wing," he ordered as he swept past the teens without pausing.

"What happened?" Artemis demanded as they helped Kaldur and M'Gann to unsteady feet. "What did you two do?"

"Tranquilizer," Wally answered. "Enough to take down a really pissed off Rhino. Batman distracted him while I nailed him with it. Hopefully, we can figure out what's wrong with him now and reverse it."

Reaching the medical wing, they found Batman had placed Robin in an isolation unit and was already running tests. "Artemis," he called. "Go to the communications room and put this in the computer." He paused long enough to toss her a disk, then turned back to Robin. "It'll undo what Robin did. Once the system is unlocked, contact the League and update them. Tell J'onn and Flash that I require their assistance."

Knowing better than to argue in such a situation, Artemis quickly took off and did as requested. When the two adults, plus Red Tornado and Black Canary arrived, she returned with them to the medical wing and sat quietly with her friends, watching and waiting.

YJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJYJ

It was two days before a breakthrough was made and a cure developed. Robin was kept unconscious as it seemed that whatever had infected him had reverted to a bad fever and they feared that, if they woke him, the illness would come to a head and kill him.

Upon injecting the boy, the affect was almost immediate. His harsh breathing eased and his temperature started to fall. Within an hour, he was almost back to normal, but they waited another six hours before letting him wake up. When he did wake he was, naturally, confused.

"W-What am I d-doing here?" he whispered, blinking up at Batman who was bent over him and running a gentle hand through his dark hair. "What happened?"

"You've been very sick for the last two days," Batman answered. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Robin frowned, struggling to remember. "I…I was on my way here. This…van pulled up next to me and…" He trailed off, his frown deepening. "I can't remember anything after that. How did I get here?"

"I'll tell you later. Your team is anxious to see you. Are you up for it?"

Robin thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded. Batman gave his hand a gentle squeeze and said, "I'll be back shortly," before heading out to where he knew the other kids waited. "You can see him now, but don't stay long and *don't* tell him what happened. He doesn't need to know this soon. I'll tell him when he's ready, understood?"

The teens nodded and hurried inside while Batman continued on to where J'onn and Barry waited. "He remembers a van coming up next to him on his way here, then nothing else."

"Well, that's a problem, isn't it," Barry said, looking at J'onn who wore a look of contemplation.

"It will likely be unpleasant, but if he agrees, I will see if I can unlock the memories and discover what happened."

"He'll agree," Batman replied confidently. "When he finds out what happened, he'll agree."

And when he learned who was behind the vicious attack on his son, there would be nowhere on this Earth that they could hide. He would find them and they would live out their days regretting that they were ever born. It was promise he made then and there.

And he *always* kept his promises.

END


End file.
